The Entertainment Software Association announced today that E3 2019 would not play host to Sony for the first time since inception. The gaming convention started 24 years ago, and Sony appeared at every single one of the yearly expos. Earlier this year Sony announced that they would not hold their "PlayStation Experience" for the first time since inception - though that event was only four years old at the time.
Sony has emailed PlayStation owners with a notice impacting the PlayStation 3: some game servers will be shutting down in January 2019. The decision to shut down the servers only applies to a handful of games, none of which are likely to have a large number of players at this point. Other game servers will continue to operate for now.
Just as the rumors foretold, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is heading to PlayStation 4 next month. Ever since the game appeared on Xbox One at the tail end of 2017, we've been wondering when (or even if) a PS4 release would happen. It seems that whatever exclusivity period PUBG Corp struck with Microsoft will soon be coming to an end, as Sony announced the news today.
Black Friday is quickly approaching, but before retail's day of reckoning actually arrives, Sony has told us what we can expect in terms of PlayStation discounts. As we see pretty much every year, there will be some decent deals on hardware, so if you've been thinking about picking up a PS4 or a PSVR, you might want to brave the masses on Black Friday.
In the gaming industry, one of the few constants throughout the years has been the design of Sony's DualShock controller for the PS4. Though each generation sees some minor tweaks to the design of the controller, there hasn't been much in the way of radical change jumping from console to console. That might be changing, as a new Sony patent suggests a big new feature for a future version of the DualShock.
Following in the footsteps of Nintendo and their recent NES and SNES Classic mini consoles, Sony will releasing a similar take on the PS1 next month: the PlayStation Classic, a plug-and-play replica of the 32-bit console, loaded with 20 of the platform's most memorable games. Like Nintendo's Classic systems, the PlayStation Classic will use an emulator to run its games, but in Sony's case it's relying on a piece of open source software.
In contrast to the fast turnover in the smartphone market and sometimes even in the PC market, gaming consoles are often sold for keeps, changing significantly only after 3 maybe even 6 years. And unless the changes are significant, new SKUs are rolled out without any fuss or fanfare, much less an announcement. That is definitely the case with the new PS4 Pro, model number CUH-7200, whose existence was almost unnoticed. And it's almost the perfect entrance for a revision that could very well be the quietest PS4 Pro yet.
Nokia’s Stephen Elop, formerly a Microsoft exec, called it. The smartphone market has practically become a two-horse race between Android and iOS. Ironically, he and the old Nokia are partly to blame. Gone are the days when alternative mobile platforms like Maemo and Meego were trying to carve out their place in the market. Out of those defunct but not really failed attempts came Jolla and its Sailfish OS. Now at version 3, the mobile platform proves that it still keeps on going. The only problem is that it barely has any phones to run on.
The high-budget games of the modern era tend to take up a ton of space. Microsoft and Sony both offer consoles that start at 500GB of internal storage and go up to 1TB from there, but depending on the kind of games you play, 1TB might not even be enough to store your entire library. There are external storage options for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but a better solution is just to have as much storage as possible from the get go. Today, Sony announced a new PS4 Pro that helps with just that.
Sony's livestreaming television service PlayStation Vue has added new channels for sports and science fiction fans. The additions are split up into the Core and Elite packages, though some of the sports offerings are limited to the Sports Pack, which is an add-on that can be tacked to one of the channel tiers for an additional fee.
Sony Online Entertainment today announced that it has struck a new patent licensing deal with Lenovo. The agreement will allow Lenovo to license the design of the PlayStation VR for use its own Mirage Solo headset. What this agreement ultimately means is, at the moment at least, anyone's guess.
Sony has unveiled its upcoming free games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. These titles will be available to download for free starting in November, offering PS3, PS4, and PS Vita owners all something to enjoy. Next month's biggest free game is Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, which includes both add-ons and exclusive content.